Tag Archives: Logistics

Vessel schedule reliability lowest on record

Posted on January 28, 2022 by | Leave a comment

The nice graphs here show that ocean carrier schedule reliability is extremely low, hovering between 30 and 40%.

Source: Sea-Intelligence, via Port Technology International

The COVID years of 2020 and 2021 have seen a remarkable drop from the 70% to 80% reliability of 2018 and 2019. Is COVID likely the culprit? To some extent the disruption it triggered caused order fluctuation that the ocean carriers with their very large ships were not prepared for. The ensuing port congestion coupled with the practice of blanking sailings of the very large ships when they were not nearly full caused the drop.

I don’t see how a service with a 30% to 40% reliability can maintain itself. The ocean carriers say that back to normal demand will fix the problem, but the fact is that demand for instance from Asia to the West Coast US is actually still below peaks of 2019. So normal demand would be higher, not lower.

Vessel schedule reliability lowest on record 27 January 2022 Port Technology International Team

Vessel schedule reliability lowest on record – Port Technology International
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Empty containers become a focal point in push to ease Los Angeles port congestion

Posted on January 27, 2022 by | Leave a comment

The Port of LA has too many empty containers sitting around. They are taking up space that could be moved to ease the congestion in the terminals.

But terminals can’t be made to clear the empties. And ocean carriers may not be in a hurry to move them out to pick up more cargo. It’s almost as cheap to simply build new containers for the exports in China.

So what to do? That’s what the Port and the terminal operators are wrrestling with. They can’t all be made into container houses. And it seems we are seeing refusals of ag exports using them.

Perhaps we should consider scrapping them and resell the steel, as we do with old ships. The Port could charge the container owner for the scrapping work, and keep the scrap steel money.

It’s not just emissions from container shipping that have sustainability problems. Too many containers littering the landscape is not sustainable either. It’s as if your Amazon packages arrived daily, but you had nowhere to dump the boxes; soon your house would be full of cardboard. And unlike containers, the Amazon boxes fold up!!

If ocean carriers and the container shipping business are serious about ESG concerns, stopping dumping empty containers on the importing countries seems like an easy place to start to improve things

Published Nov. 17, 2021 Edwin Lopez

https://www.supplychaindive.com/news/empty-containers-ease-congestion-port-of-los-angeles/610171/

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Pasha Hawaii teams with Costco on chartering spree

Posted on January 24, 2022 by | 1 comment

Costco is another firm that has decided to figure out how to move its imports without help from the ocean shipping alliances. It is working with Pasha Hawaii to charter box ships. according to the article, Costco is now in a position to move 20% of imports using its own fleet.

That will give Costco a lot more freedom to choose routes and drop-off points. Perhaps they can choose landings where congestion is lower, or where they can get guaranteed times for drop-off.

It will be interesting to see what they do about containers. But it’s easy to buy containers made in China for the export trade. And it’s almost cheaper than returning the empties to China and the Far East.

Sam Chambers January 24, 2022

Pasha Hawaii teams with Costco on chartering spree – Splash247
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